Eisenbruch & Krasnow_The face of justice_preprint August 16 2019

Abstract

The facial appearance of candidates affects political outcomes, such that voters prefer candidates who appear attractive, competent and dominant. These effects are especially pronounced for conservative and female candidates, and among less-informed voters. This has led to the hypothesis that appearance effects are a heuristic of last resort used by naïve voters who lack relevant knowledge about the candidates or issues. Here, we test for appearance effects in a political process run by well-informed specialists: the appointment of federal judges. We had the faces of a large sample of federal judges rated on a variety of traits, and found that judges appointed by Republican presidents appear more “robust” (i.e. stronger, more attractive, more competent, more likely to win a fight) than Democratic-appointed judges, but only among female judges. This suggests that appearance effects are not confined to low information voters, but affect the decisions of political specialists as well.